BINTULU, March 26 – Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud envisions Sarawak to become the richest state in Malaysia by 2030 should there be ample highly skilled locals and sound economic administration.

Speaking at a dinner to celebrate his 28th anniversary as Sarawak Chief Minister, he said the struggle to achieve this vision would start from now as the state is going through a second wave of development.

“This (vision) is the biggest undertaking that would even outlive me whereby in 2030, Sarawak will be the richest state in Malaysia and will become a land of opportunities for the people,” he added.

Taib said he had already charted plans to set up more higher learning institutions to train Sarawakians in a highly-skilled workforce that could diversify the future economic activities in the state.With the depletion of natural resources, he said the future generation of Sarawakians would need to be trained to be able to explore and efficiently exploit potential new resources that could be used to maintain the state’s pace of development.

Anyone who would be leading Sarawak into that era would have to start from now, to form a good teamwork with other leaders, so as to maintain a harmonious environment that would facilitate the task of planning for the next development, he said.

He added that the leader should also ensure that the people in the state would not be confused by their development plans as this could put them in a difficult position to progress.

The success of transforming Sarawak into a stage of development that could be enjoyed now, was the result of good understanding and cooperation from all levels of people in the state, he said.

“I don’t deserve to get all the credit as I’m only the thinker. The success reflects the success of the people at large and that is the success we are celebrating today,” he said.